Theatre Essentials in Three Acts: Collaboration, Care, Time

• DOI: 10.1353/tt.2021.0025
• Publication Date: 2021-08-15T13:04:00Z
• Authors: Shawn Chua; Sozita Goudouna; Adham Hafez; Eero Laine; Sarah Lucie; Juliana Moraes; Malin Palani; Rumen Rachev; Leah Sidi

Theatre Essentials in Three Acts: Collaboration, Care, Time Shawn Chua (bio), Sozita Goudouna Adham Hafez Eero Laine Sarah Lucie Juliana Moraes Malin Palani Rumen Rachev and Leah Sidi (bio) The following is not an article. Nor it a play, despite its structure. To some extent, performance experiment. It was written collaboratively by group of performance-makers scholars response to the difficulties writing studying during pandemic. Following cancelled international conference, we wrote from five different continents moments crisis shaped personal, political, geographical particularities. Meeting over Zoom, shared our fears for industries, communities, personal griefs. We also sought think together Topics' call articles on "Theatre Essentials." Prior this work, many us did know one another, although had worked through other projects academic gatherings. consider essentials theatre has opened possibilities examine what remains own as well how discipline field might coalesce when gathering person considered dangerous act. Urgent times urgent forms. In article, write simultaneously about present. search means structuring containing landed conventions three-act play. always provided container monumental immediate emotions complex, contradictory thought. have selectively borrowed here, using "acts" delineate work collective thinking without attempting narrative progress. Within act "play," create together, transform. Each scene below dialogue voices. acts no climax because even return review writing, pandemic continues, griefs, vulnerabilities, uncertainties explored are unresolved. Because theatres closed, turn stage page. small video boxes flashing cursors bring together. Like rehearsing gather structured time think. hear COVID-19 situation Auckland, Buffalo, London, New York City, São Paulo, Singapore, Waterloo. strive accommodate multidisciplinary perspectives voices care. cautious romanticize collaboration or care into vision working dissonance. And though barely another. Our conversations exciting long silences develop processes navigating thoughts screens web pages. Google Docs becomes rehearsal room, studio, stage, place where words meet, characters play complex game exposing themselves, telling stories amid theoretical speculations, editing another: dissent, I differently resist structure, pain, sorrows, losses moment (which require we've put forward, really before moment) need which hold cacophony that crying out. A doesn't align these bodies, at stake, along familiar historically oppressive timeline. contains. [End Page 99] various scenes collectively written, they sometimes highlight voice experience. conversation open, ongoing but resolution finale. invite you, reader, speak back with us. Connected understandings collaboration, care, time, meet across zones breakfast, lunch breaks, mid-afternoon, deep night. Open Zoom.us Connecting [Unmute] [Start Video] Act I: Collaboration Scene 1: Collective "I"s absence theatre, form digital embodied Sounds North American birds enter rooms around planet computer audio, just Brazilian morning...